This trope might be related to the "Double Deviance" theory that women are naturally passive/ineffective/"pure" and therefore a female criminal isn't just deviant against society, but against her sex and its "natural" passivity. Here there are two ways to interpret the vicious character of a woman who really is doing bad things because of her own character, not because of the influence of those evil men: You could portray her such that she's still female and innocent, therefore not as bad as a man; or you could also say that she is even worse because men have the excuse of I'm a Man; I Can't Help It while a woman would have to be motivated by her own willpower—and therefore she has a more evil will than most men.
It's likely that this trope originated in the Victorian Era, when women were considered so delicate and frail that they should be shielded from the world's ills — treated like slightly bigger children, in fact. The flip side of this was that once a woman fell into sin, she was a depraved and godless individual who would think nothing of any crime, no matter how hideous. Then along came writers such as Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens, whose idea of "balancing" this was by having "fallen" women whose very innocence had made them easy prey for cruel and heartless men. The influence of this wicked man never pierced the pure soul beneath, however, and the sinner would always happily return to the straight and narrow if she could bring herself to accept it.
